| WorldFest Houston International Film Festival | |
|---|---|
| Location | Houston, Texas, United States |
| Hosted by | Houston Film Society |
| Number of films | 55-60 shown |
| Official website | |
WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival is an annual film festival, dedicated to various types of independent films, held in Houston, Texas.
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WorldFest-Houston is one of the three original international film festivals in North America, after San Francisco and New York. It was founded in 1961 as Cinema Arts, an International Film Society. WorldFest/Cinema Arts became a competitive International Film Festival in 1967 and presented its first edition in April 1968. It is the only international film festival in North America to be dedicated completely to independent films, as it does not accept films from the major studios. The festival was founded by producer/director Hunter Todd to present a film festival for independent filmmakers.[1] WorldFest-Houston is the oldest film festival in the South of the USA and its Founding Director Hunter Todd is one of the longest running festival directors in the world, having started the festival in 1961.
The festival presents around 55 new Indie feature films and 100 new Indie Short films during the ten-day film festival each April. Aside from the film viewing, the festival offers six Master Classes, professional seminars, and workshops. Both the films and classes are open to the public. In addition, a Festival Club exists that is open every evening during the festival, a Remi Awards Gala Dinner and a unique Sailing Regatta and Texas BBQ held annually at The Houston Yacht Club on the final day of the festival. It is the only film festival in the world that presents a regatta. Attendance is over 30,000 general public and more than 550 international filmmakers over the ten-day event.
WorldFest gave first honors to Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ang Lee, Ridley Scott, The Coen Brothers, David Lynch, Brian De Palma, Oliver Stone, John Lee Hancock, Randal Kleiser, Shane Stanley, Daniele Gangemi and many more. Sci-Fi director David Winning has won twenty-two Gold/Platinum Remi Awards from 1994 to present, making him the winningest filmmaker in the history of Worldfest.
The Remi Award is inspired by the creative genius of the western artist Frederic Remington, famous for his paintings and sculptures of cowboy life in Texas and The West. The Grand Remi Statuette is presented for the top award in each major category. The Special Jury Awards are Grand Remi Nominees, they are the highest awards for creative excellence in each major category. Then the Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze Remi Awards are 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place in each sub-category. There are ten major competition categories that can win the Remi Award; Shorts, Features, TV Productions, Student Productions, TV Commercials, Experimental, New Media (including Interactive and Websites), Music Videos, Unproduced Screenplays and Film & Video Production (which includes Documentaries of various genres). WorldFest receives a total of more than 4,500 category entries in all ten categories and about 15% of the entries go on to win the Remi Award.